


i got to say, it's hard to be brave in the dark

by charjace



Series: Problem Child ; JATP [2]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Gen, Parental Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28284819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charjace/pseuds/charjace
Summary: Paper thin wallsAngry words from down the hallSomething changed them
Series: Problem Child ; JATP [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071917
Kudos: 12





	i got to say, it's hard to be brave in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> this was written within like an hour or two, no proof reading! enjoy. this is going to be a series based on my previous fanfic expanding a little on each person's relationship with their parents!
> 
> also loosely based & song title from nightmares by all time low

He was six years old when everything had changed. Six years old, when he lost his older brother to the dark cold place that they call  _ death _ . His parents, they took it hard and he cried his eyes out. He didn’t understand it. Why wasn’t his brother come back?  _ Where _ was his brother! He would yell and scream, asking for his brother – asking his parents, but they told him he wasn’t coming back. They started to tell him in soft voices, but he still didn’t get it. Soon, the voices turned angry, and he hated it.

Curling up on his brother’s bed, he wondered why his brother wasn’t coming back – he would come back for his birthday, right? It was next week, but – Reggie turns six, and his brother still isn’t anywhere, and his parents yell at him when they find him curled up on his brother’s bed. They yell at him to go to his own room, that he was never allowed in this room again.

The next day, his father was installing a lock on the door, and Reggie ran out into the beach. He just cried, and cried until he couldn’t anymore. It took him a few months, but – it finally sunk in, his brother wasn’t coming back, and it hurt his little heart. When he walked back into the house, it was quiet, dinner was quiet.

Not even six months have passed when he hears the first  _ yelling _ . It’s a whispered kind of yelling, but the walls in the house aren’t that thick. It’s like they’re trying to not wake up the little boy that sleeps down the hall from them. He pulls the covers up, and closer around himself as he starts to hum a soft tune to get himself to sleep.

By the time he is ten years old, they’ve stopped the whisper yelling – it's just plain old fighting now. They don’t seem to care if it keeps their child awake anymore. The house is very  _ cold _ , his parents barely talk to him anymore, and he just feels like a  _ ghost  _ within his own home. He hates it, his parents are still making food for him – but, he can’t stand the glares his parents give, or the names they call him or each other, so he only eats half of his food before  disappearing into his room, trying to calm himself enough to fall asleep.

Thirteen years old, and his parents only acknowledge him when his school has called them because he was ‘too destructive’ or he failed something. It sucked, because Reggie was  _ smart, _ he understood the work – but, not how the teachers taught him. When Luke or Alex explained it too him, in a way he understood – he got it, but he could only go to them so often with this. Thirteen years old, and he’s learning to cook for himself because his parents have seemed to have forgotten they still have a child who is alive, who is living under their roof. 

He could come in late, or not go home for days on end and he is sure his parents don’t even notice it. When they got the studio, Reggie found himself slinking off into it some nights just to get a good night sleep, because sleeping in his own bed wasn’t an easy task. Not with his parents arguing long into the night as if they have nothing better to do.

There were many nights he cried himself to sleep because it just got too much. Some nights, he’d make his way to Alex, or Luke, or sometimes Bobby’s home, just because he needed the company. Because he needed to know, that  _ someone _ cared for him – that he wasn’t alone, that he wasn’t a ghost – that he was  _ real _ .

He was fifteen years old when he slung a bag over his shoulder and headed out into the night, pedalling fast. His parents had started fighting about his grades again, they called him  _ names _ , called each other names – and he just couldn’t stand it. So, off into the night he went. He found himself at Alex’s place, where he knocked on his friend’s window – he didn’t want to disturb the rest of the Mercer family by knocking on the front door.

Once the soft light flickers in the room, Reggie smiles a little – and Alex’s face popped into view before opening up the window to let Reggie into his room.

“Again?” Alex asks softly, looking towards his friend once he shut the window when the other was in the room. Reggie just gives a soft nod of his head, and Alex pulls him into a tight hug, where Reggie just cries into his friend’s shoulder. Arms wrapping around Alex, holding him closer and so tightly, he was sure he could have squeezed the air out of Alex. “It’s okay. I’m here,” Alex softly reassures his friend, repeating the words ever so often until Reggie pulls away, wiping at his eyes.

“I-”

“Don’t say sorry, just change into your pyjamas, and I’ll get you a pillow and blanket,” Alex tells Reggie, gesturing to the door – and Reggie knew the routine. 

Reggie switches into his pyjamas in the Mercer bathroom before walking back into Alex’s room, where he sees a pillow and a few blankets already laying on the ground next to Alex’s bed. Alex was on his bed, and smiled lightly at Reggie. 

“Good night Reg,” Alex says when Reggie lays down.

“Good night Alex,” Reggie repeats, and closes his eyes as Alex switches off the lamp.

Fingers tightly wrapped around the blanket that he held close to his chest, holding it as if it was a lifeline in the dark, as if it would keep the nightmares at bay. It doesn’t, the older he gets the nightmares juts don’t stop and his parents won’t stop yelling and blaming each other. He holds himself so tightly in his sleep, as the yells seep into his ears – and he wakes up to his  parent's loud voices coming through the  paper-thin walls.

Getting back to sleep, never works and so he just plays on his guitar that he had saved up for, working on perfecting the songs that would help him escape the darkness that was this home, and this nightmare he was  supposed to call a family.

Eventually, he’ll leave this place – and he’ll never come back, what reason would he have to come back? 


End file.
